TDs make nuclear plant trip

An Oireachtas committee is meeting UK nuclear regulators today as part of a two-day trip to the controversial Sellafield plant.

Following a major leak of radioactive acid at the reprocessing unit last April, a cross-party group of TDs decided they wanted to see the ageing complex first hand.

Members of the Joint Committee on the Environment and Local Government are touring the site and meeting British Nuclear Fuels Limited, the company which manages the site.

The TDs are also due to discuss Sellafield with the UK Regulators – the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and British Environment Agency.

Green Party TD Ciaran Cuffe, who travelled to the plant over concerns about its safety, attacked Minister for the Environment Dick Roche for not joining the trip.

But Mr Roche insisted he never received an invite to go on the visit.

After a leak at the plant last spring, two senior managers were suspended but news of it did not emerge for some months. Work at the Thorpe complex was halted when the leak, which could have occurred as long ago as August 2004, was discovered in April.